Countries Affected

El Salvador

Coffee is a huge commodity in El Salvador. In fact, it helped a lot in improving the El Salvadorian economy in 1980s. The coffee industry in the country rapidly grew in the 19th century. El Salvadorian coffee provided more than 50% of the country’s total export revenues. It reached a peak in 1980 with a revenue of more than $615 million.

Unfortunately, the growth started to slow down when the war began. Though people started seeing signs of coffee rust in 1979, there wasn’t a disease outbreak during that time. However, the disease started to spread out later on.

Learn about the 'Roya' (coffee rust) devastating impact as you listen to Marie from Naturalba, an Organic Coffee Producer and 'Beneficio' in Costa Rica.